welcome to al jazeera america. i'm tony harris in new york. here are your headlines. >> the idea of putting the american people's hard-earn progress at risk is the height of irresponsibility, and it doesn't have to happen. >> president obama warns that the impending shutdown hurts everyone. saying it is congress's basic responsibility to keep the doors open. the shutdown will happen at midnight unless the senate passes the house resolution, which is unlikely. and benjamin netenyahu met with the president today. the primary topic was iran, and the president ensured

mr. netenyahu that sanctions against iran would not be eased prematurely. tomorrow he will address the un general assembly. and pope francis announced he will announce two of his predecessors saints the first sunday after easter. boss popes are credited are helping modernize the catholic church in the 21st century. more news at the top of next hour. "real money with ali velshi" is next. ♪ ♪ the government that your taxes pay to keep working is on the brink of a shutdown. i'll tell you what that means for american workers, companies and the economy and what it says

about washington. and find out what happens if congress fails to raise the debt ceiling. i'm ali velshi and this is "real money." ♪ this is "real money," you are the most important part of the show, join our live conversation for the next half with this hashtag on twitter. for the first time in 17 years large chunks of the federal government are expected to shut down at 1 minute past midnight. republicans see today's deadline as a way to gut obamacare right as a key provision of the new law is about to launch. democrats who control the senate aren't ready to let that happen.

so once again washington remains at an impasse. in response the dow fell almost a full point. for most americans defaulting on american's obligations is going to be a much bigger deal. this is the whole year. the dow is still up 15.5% for the year. now the public fear is divided on who to blame for the state of play in washington. 39% blame republicans, 36% blame the obama administration, and 17% blame both. either way it's clear that house republicans believe this is the last chance they have to defang obamacare. if the government does shut down

as many as 800,000 workers could be forced off of the job without pay, which will obviously hurt the company. essential services will continue. government checks, va checks, social security benefits will still be sent out. medicare and medicaid will keep paying dockers to and hospitals for their services. it may not have a lasting economic effect, and americans dependant on certain services are going to be inconveniences. today on twitter and facebook, i have been asking you, how would a government shutdown effect you financially. ron says it is already effecting me, because the market is dropping, so my stocks have lost money. as i said they have lost money

in the last week. they are up quite a bit over the year. brine says . . . that's important. tell me what you think about tweeting me @ali velshi. president obama said a government shutdown would effect real people immediately. julie is one of those workers who works for a government contractor that provides leadership training and technical assistance to nonprofit organizations. julie good to see you. you that group of people where a lot of americans don't understand where you fit in the whole pie. you are not a government employee, but a good amount of your livelihood, i don't know what percentage comes from work you do for the federal government. >> so, i'm a little bit of an odd ball, i serve as a part-time employee of a government

contracting firm where i help low-income families get jobs, and i lead an organization separate from that as well. it is going to hit me, the dry cleaners, the bar owners, the coffee shop owners first because those are the things that people can cut. >> that's exactly the point i'm trying to get at here. a lot of people say i'm not going to a national park it's the end of september. the issue is how it trickles down to other parts of the economy. how does somebody like you plan around a potential government shutdown. >> we got instructions at 5:00 today that said we still don't know.

but that employee could be locked out tomorrow. for the rest of my business, my clients don't know what to expect. many non-profits and small businesses around the country work with government. ironically this is bad. sequestration on the budget is horrible. do you hire somebody for a one-year contract because you don't know, or -- >> you live in northern virginia where there are a lot of businesses that do work for the federal government. your area did well. is -- are seem people finding with all of this uncertainty that maybe it is better to diversify a little bit? >> ironically my clients are all over the country, and that's the recommendation i make to them, and that's what i have been trying to do. i have a friend who will be

laying off 60 people unless she can redeploy them to other projects. we used to think that government funding was pretty stable. >> yeah. >> it's not anymore. and the timing makes it an interesting process. because it all happens at once. >> julie. thank you for sharing your story with us. good luck to you. a government shutdown could take a toll on the thousands of victims of the flooding in colorado. paul joins us from lyons, colorado. tell us about this story, paul. >> ali here in lyons as you can see roads and bridges are washed out all over town. and all of those homes have no electricity, sewage, gas, water,

and they are waiting for millions of dollars to get the town back up and running. one of the city managers is hoping they will get power back for the first time in weeks tomorrow. they are hoping for $42 million -- pardon me, they have had $42 million in damage here in lyons alone, 75% they are hoping will come from the federal government. >> that's pretty remarkable right behind you, you can see the damage that's done right there because of the water. paul what is the feeling on the ground around there as they look east to washington and wonder what is going on? >> you were talking about essential versus nonessential personnel. that's a big question here. all of the fema personnel on the ground, ready to rebuild these roads and get services up and running, there were 100 guardsmen who came up from utah,

but then they had to turn around because they won't be able to begin work until the shutdown question is sorted out. >> thank you, paul. for the 58th time in 62 years, congress and the president have not agreed to a budget. where do we go from here? here is a guy who knows a lot about this. he is david walker who served for nearly ten years as the comptroller for the u.s. government. david joins us now from stanford. financial responsibility is a massive, massive, important issue. but it comes in different ways. this is the basic responsibility of the u.s. government to make a

budget. why have we become so bad at this? >> because we have a republic that is no longer representative of or responsive to the public. we need redistricting reform, campaign finance reform, and term elements. too many people that value party over country and enough is enough. there's only one thing in the constitution that the congress is supposed to do every year. that is pass timely appropriations bills -- >> right. everything else is optional. >> correct. >> and i get your point, but we have also had partisan politics in this country. have we become worse or does it just look that way? >> we are worse, because we have sophisticated computer modeling

that will allow you to draw districts down to the block, and they draw districts to protect their party and incumbents. we have gone from over a hundred swing districts in the country to 35 now. so there's no sense super bowl center when reality 60% of the country is not far left or right. >> as ugly as it is, there are some people who have a point of view that is worth listening to. when we come back i want you to help us outline what we would do if we were actually negotiating to get a budget. let's forget about the shutdown for just a minute and worry about uncle sam smashing his head into the debt ceiling.

everything you need to know about that when "real money" returns.

what happens when social media uncovers unheard, fascinating news stories? it drives discussion across america. share your story on tv and online. now let's get to something truly frightening, for those who care if the country pays its bill. the 17th is when the country is expected to hit its

$16.7 trillion debt spending. if the government wants to keep paying its bills, it has to raise that debt ceiling. these are bills for goods and services and debt already incurred by uncle sam. congress has to vote to raise it before the 17th. if it fails to act the u.s. could default on its debt implications and that could have all sorts of scary implications. so why does it have this system? here is a quick refresher on the debt ceiling. ♪ >> back in the old days there was a system where each time the treasury needs to borrow money, it had to go to congress. but after world war i this process became cumbersome.

so the debt ceiling was established by law to give the treasury to borrow more than it had up to a limit. despite the effort as some to portray this as a new phenomenon the debt ceiling has been raised more than 70 times since 1962. most countries acknowledge if you run up a bill, you pay for it. the debt ceiling is not a limit on how much money the government can spending, because the government has no such limit. as long as your members of congress pass bills that cost money, that money will get spent. the debt ceiling a somebody paying those bills raising the debt ceiling this i'm around

isn't likely to cause problems with the credit rating. david walker was the u.s. comptroller general from 1998 to 2008 and he headed up the government accountability office. he joins us to explain why hitting the debt ceiling would be a problem to the u.s. economy. david there are ways to deal with spending too much money. there are people who talk about balanced budget amendments. this is not the most efficient way to deal with government spending. >> it is absolutely not. we are the only nation that has a debt ceiling that is based upon a dollar amount. really what we need is a credit card limit. we should set a limit as to how much debt as a percentage of our economy we should be able to take on and then take steps to

try to restrain spending, grow the economy, move to a more efficient tax system to help us get to that limit. >> but all of this takes a real sit down between the administration and both parties so sit down and say how do we make this better, fairer and more responsible for everyone. this is not in the cards. >> no, but what we could get is an agreement to a debt ceiling last the next election, and replace the ceiling with more discretionary spending. we can get a commitment to come up with tax reform by a date certain in the future and let the legislative process work,

and we could get a commitment for a delay in the effective mandate for the affordable care plan. because the government is not ready to implement the mandate. >> when you say we could get all of these things, from whom and how? there are people who think this is the only way they can do business now. a lot of hawks say the only way we get anything done around here is we put everybody's backs to the wall. >> and this year is going to be worse. and the reason why it is going to be worse is we have not passed any of the appropriations bills, so as a result everything is on the table, and basically what the debt ceiling says is you can't spend more money than you have, so we're going to be up -- beginning november 1st, you are going to be up with

social security benefits. and that is takes out more than it is taking in. so we need to reach a reasonable compromise. frankly they ought to extend -- they ought to do a continuing resolution and put all of this into one big negotiation that can get us past the next election. >> i know you have been saying that for a long time. david walker is the ceo of comeback america initiative. obamacare health exchange opens on tuesday. i'll tell you what you need to know, and why leading a healthy lifestyle is more important than ever for your health and your wallet. that's when "real money" returns.

obamacare insurance exchanges go live on tuesday. here is what you need to know. if you are an american work we are health insurance, nothing changes for you. but if you are one of the millions of uninsured, getting buy on cobra or self-insured,

listen up. enrollment opens october 1st, closure is march 31st. if you buy a plan on the exchange between now and december 15th, your coverage begins january 1st. nobody is getting coverage before january 1st, i think. if you sign up in january or february, your coverage will start the following month. the early stages of obamacare are heavily focused on getting coverage for those without health care coverage. david joins me now with a look at wellness programs under obamacare. i feel like i use recuse myself from this conversation, given i don't participate in a lot of wellness programs, but -- [ technical difficulties ] -- costs would be much lower. >> that's true. it's often reallies really the holy grail of health care.

your employer has an interesting of keeping its employees healthy. and obamacare, companies may have incentive to keep people coming to work. >> reporter: staying healthy could gave you money under obamacare. under the affordable care act, there are new incentives for employer to make their employees healthier. those costs include reimbursements for gym memberships attendance at wellness seminars or regularly going for checkups. that leasts up to as much as 50% for employees who enroll in programs to stop smoking. about 36% of companies offer employees a way to reduce their monthly insurance premium if they join. the idea is to held off the

health problems that could become more expensive if left untreated. >> these could range from milling out a questionnaire to much more stringent programs where people are penalized if they don't meet certain thresholds for getting their weight down or stopping spoking. >> reporter: but critics site privacy concerns. and plans that charge higher premiums for workers in poorer health have always raised concerns about discrimination. now there's also a lot in this law -- [ technical difficulties ] -- no longer be able to deny you coverage if you are sick or charge you more if you are a woman. >> all right. david stick around.

we'll have more. the october 1st kickoff date, if history is any indication the first days of a national overhaul aren't as important as what follows. timothy mcbride joins me now. thank you very much for being with us. >> good evening, ali. >> i'm sort of relieved by what you have to say, because i'm hoping october 1st isn't some date that is all consuming for us. it's really a date for people to kick up their understanding of what is available to them. >> that's exactly right. they can get online at health care.org and start asking questions and investigating this. >> now this is not meant town roll perfectly there is a lot of focus in the media about this is being delayed, and this is

changing a little bit, this is massive. >> yeah, there will be some fits and starts. we have seen this happen before like when we rolled out the prescription drug program for theelerly, that will happen unevenly across the country as well, i think. >> there were a lot of controversy about that program, and a lot of people who didn't like it. >> i think that's right. now it is a very popular. >> one of the most popular questions we get, and we can't answer it for most people. they want to know what it is going to cost them? if they are not insured is it worth doing? what is your general sense of this? >> we are just starting to see the data now. and it really kind of depends on where you live, actually. if you live in an urban area, it will probably be a little less,

and if you live in certain states it will be lower than other states. it ranges from pretty high rates in mississippi to lower states in california. so people are going to have to investigate this, and there will be people called navigators that can answer this stuff. and there are four levels of plans that people can choose from. >> the date may not matter as much, but please take the time to investigate. thank you so much. final thoughts today are about you. all of this talk about washington almost eclipse the fact that it is the end of the third quarter. despite the markets gyrations in the last week because of the dut and shutdown, and debt ceiling talk the s&p is up 18% for the

entire year. ignore all of the noise about shutdowns debt ceilings and make this about you. stocks do well over time. this would be a good time to look at your investments and ask you if those are the same things you would invest in today. the quarter end is also a good time to consider starting to invest in the market. we're still in a low interest rate environment so you can't grow your money effectively without taking a little risk. think about it, i'll remind you again in three months. that's our show for today. tuesday marks one day of the online health exchange. across america. share your story on tv and online.

♪ hi, i'm lisa fletcher, and you are in "the stream." controversial comments from the attorney general overseas a problem in our nation, baby's dependent on drugs. ♪ recently indiana's attorney general suggested drug screening for pregnant women. his idea was met with statewide backlash, cng